It brings to 18 the number of Israelis and others who have died, along with 80 Palestinians, in a wave of violence over the past seven weeks.

Police say that more than half of the Palestinians killed in recent weeks died at the scene of attacks on Israelis and that most of the rest died in violent protests in the West Bank and near the Gaza border.

Palestinian allegations that Israel was trying to alter the religious status quo at a Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where the al-Aqsa mosque stands, and to Jews as Temple Mount, have partly fuelled the violence.

Non-Muslim prayer is banned around al-Aqsa and Israel has said it will not change that.

But more visits in recent years by Jewish religious activists and ultra-nationalist Israeli politicians to the complex, where two biblical temples once stood, have done little to convince the Palestinians.

Earlier on Thursday, three 15-year-old Palestinian girls attempted to infiltrate an Israeli military post in the West Bank, the military said.

Soldiers apprehended them, and the military said three knives were found in their possession.